The Gospel Truth Q&A

What gave you the confidence to write in this voice? Who am I to write this story? Good question. In writing Greener Grass, I had roots and relatives. I was an Irish immigrant. I felt some ownership of the story I told. Some right to that voice—my main character did, after all, sound just like my Granny. But I hesitated when the idea for The Gospel Truth became clearer. After all, who am I—a white, suburban, middle-class mom—to write this story?

Was it even mine to tell?

Unlike my other novels, this was not my journey, not my heritage, not my voice—and yet it fascinated me. I’ll do the research, I told myself, and see. I soon realized this journey wasn’t about telling a story as much as it was about listening to others’.How did you develop such an authentic voice for these characters? I listened to them. If you want to understand anyone, past or present, you’ve got to be willing to listen to their stories.

In any research, primary sources are key. Imagine being able to hear what it was really like from someone who has been there. Sometimes you can find those voices in old newspaper articles, letters, or journals. But since it was considered unnecessary and often illegal for slaves to read or write (in fact, you could get charged for teaching them) I wondered if first hand accounts might be difficult to find. Thankfully, The Library of Congress has a collection of over 2,000 interviews with former slaves that are transcribed as spoken. Unchained Memories is a book/DVD that shares photos and excerpts from those narratives that gave vivid details about slave life. It felt like I was interviewing hundreds of former slaves. I also read sources like Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada by Benjamin Drew and autobiographies like Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrop and The Life of Josiah Henson by Josiah Henson. It fascinated me to see their world through their eyes.

All of these testimonies were so compelling and I realized that though each individual experienced slavery, their stories and worldview differed. That was why even brothers like Shad and Will don’t see things the same. It was why some slaves ran and others stayed. All of that primary source material was integral to developing a vivid and varied sense of voice.

Why is it important to tell this story today?Narratives, biographies, abolitionists’ writings, and research of that time and place, helped me imagine what it must be like to walk in their shoes, to see their world, their truths through their eyes. We start to understand and even relate—and empathy grows.

From time to time, we need to quiet that familiar voice of our own so we can hear the truth of another’s. We need to see things from new perspectives to better inform our own. I will never claim to have a right to this story, but I do have a duty to it. We all do. To listen. To learn. To see and to share.

Imagine what life would have been like back then if they approached each other with that same empathy.